Am I a Journalist?

Recently, because of the growing popularity of social media news sources, there has been some debate as to who is a journalist and who is simply a spectator, regurgitating the research and commentary made by the pros. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been following the response to the New York Times original article; “Suit Over Faulty Computers Highlights Dell’s Decline,” published both online and in a print edition on June 28, 2010 and June 29, 2010 respectively. What I have noted is that almost every other online Tech news source, including blogs and mashups have simply been summarizing the work of the New York Times writer, Ashlee Vance who wrote the news breaking article. For example, a brief synopsis on TheStreet.com, written by Ed Oswald, published on June 29, 2010 at 5:09pm doesn’t offer any new information on the story. However, I have to admit that Americans have an attention span that is shortening with every Twitter and Facebook update, and his and other bloggers condensed versions of the New York Times article is a bit easier to digest. This leads me to my first question: does writing an article on a blog that’s based on someone else’s research and sources qualify you as a journalist? My answer is no, it doesn’t. I am not a journalist unless I do my own research, follow my own leads, check my own (and others’) sources, and have more transparency than most of these sites have. Some of these bloggers actually do offer a new perspective or gather more information on stories others start; such as ZDNet’s Michael Krigsman. He added his two cents in an article called "Dell lawsuit: Pattern of deceit," consisting mostly of direct passages from the original Times article, but also included an interview he had with Ira Winkler who is an author, consultant, and an expert for the company A.I.T. who is suing Dell.  Because of his credentials ZDNet is also a subsidiary of CBS Interactive which gives the writers for ZDNet more credibility than an unaffiliated, stand alone blog.


My second question is, while most of us are happy to skim through articles, picking out the news we want to consume, are we missing the complete picture or just creating opinions on half-information and half-truths? I am fully guilty of not wanting to take the time to read a long article full of complicated terminology, riddled with details I don’t care about, but I also recognize that when an article does capture my attention; I am probably responding to an emotional reaction from some of the more interesting headlines. I think one of the reasons that Mashable is so successful, is because their twitter updates and headlines with summary blurbs capture a reader’s attention because they are brief and catchy. Are you also guilty of sifting through the news for something entertaining verses something newsworthy?